Planet Of The Mates

Samuel Bourke

Email : 1019841@student.sae.edu.au | Instagram: @smolboi.design

Planet Of The Mates

I’m pretty sure you’ve heard the average WA person say “WA is so lackluster” or “boring, but I want to propose something; is it really?

To combat these claims, I developed my project to become significant, memorable and eye catching to advertise WA’s iconic landmarks as being more than meets the eye.

It showcases these brilliant hidden treasure touchpoints in the forms of floating islands, using fantastical elements and styles similar to Studio Ghibli and WA artist; Shaun Tan.

About Samuel Bourke

Hi! I am Samuel Bourke; an aspiring graphic designer studying my fourth trimester at SAE QANTM.

As a designer, I love experimenting with different styles of artistry, layout, typography and adapting myself to something unique. Pieces that have themes of surrealism really interest me aswell, as they always have a deeper meaning inspired by certain contexts from the artist themselves. Some artists that inspire me include Moonassi & Shaun Tan.

My key skills are:

Illustration Development
Logo Design & Branding
Collateral Development
User Experience & User Interface Design
Adobe Creative Suite

Contact Me

If you need a design project done, I am able to offer my services. Please contact me via these ways, otherwise I can get back to you via messages on other contacts that I can provide!

@smolboi.design

SaMehDatBoi#4387

1019841@student.sae.edu.au

Motion Graphic & Audio

PlanetOfTheMates_SamuelBourke_FINAL_NOSPIN.mp4

Audio:

Audio student Shine Daniel made the backing track to this calming, natural illustration and did an amazing job! Tawonashe Mandangure created foley sounds for each island and was great reference for create my environments!

Shine Daniel

EMAIL: 1019707@student.sae.edu.au

Tawonashe Madangure

EMAIL: 1015672@student.sae.edu.au

FINAL_Planet_of_the_Mates_OST.wav

Shine Daniel's Audio

Plant Of The Mates Foley Kings Park.mp3

Tawona Mandagure King's Park Foley FINAL

Plant Of The Mates Foley Rottnest.mp3

Tawona Mandagure Rottnest Foley FINAL

Plant Of The Mates Foley Nature's Window.mp3

Tawona Mandagure Nature's Window Foley FINAL

Plant Of The Mates Foley Busselton Jetty.mp3

Tawona Mandagure Bussleton Jetty Foley FINAL

Posters & Infograph

Mock Ups

For all of my mockups, I wanted them to represent products that a both biodegradable and reusable to reference the themes of environmentalism I have used with my illustration. Furthermore, my "mates" in particular would be memorable and I have used them consistently through all of my design mockups. If you look closely, you might even see that my mates have names too!

Badges

Tote Bags

Stickers / Hydro Flask

Shirts

Research & Initial Concepts

Following a schedule

Gantt Chart Development

I split up my process into stages:

Stage 1: Preproduction (research, sketches and initial conceptualisation)

Stage 2: Illustration Production (development of illustration and assets)

Stage 3: Post Production (motion graphics & deliverable developments)

Splitting my gantt chart into these phases aided me to notify what stage I was at development for each week and what deliverables were due on that week aswell.

Styleboard

Shaun Tan Inspired

From Shaun Tan's About Page

Shaun Tan is a WA illustrator and artist known for his surrealist depictions of environments, animals, objects, individuals, etc. It has a very painterly style and the backgrounds are very simple yet effective. Many assets seem to be integrated into each environment and I hope to do the same for my project.

Studio Ghibli Inspired

One of the art styles I am very intrigued by is Studio Ghibli. The character designs themselves alongside the landscapes they are portrayed in are very whimsical and unique, with context of typical Japanese culture and elements weaved into it. I am hoping to replicate a similar sort of style with my project but with WA instead.

Christopher Lees Inspired

Christopher Lees is an Australian artist that depicts surrealist imagery of the Australian environment. What inspired my concepts of floating islands were his painitngs of the Australian bus within bathtubs and dishes.

Moodboard

My moodboard encapsulated the feeling that I want my project to evoke to my target audience and other individuals that view the piece. The serene environments depicted within each piece above give off a calming presence, and eases the viewers with the pieces’ use of elements and principles such as balance, contrast, movement, etc. I hope to evoke these emotions within my piece so that it is very pleasant to the viewer’s eyes and it helps ease them if they’re troubled by something within the current reality of the world right now.

Colour Palettes

Kings Park

The colour palette that I would use for Kings Park is very bright colours based off of grassy fields and kangaroo paw flora with some earthy colours. This encapsulates King’s Park environment, being a touchpoint full of significant WA flora and fauna and home to many species of animals.

Nature's Window

Due to Nature’s Window being a lookout from a rock trail, I decided to make the colours less diverse than the rest of the environments. However, this enables me to detail the rocky textures furthermore with different varieties of reds and oranges. Behind the scene will be a bright blue sky and on the rocks shall be some bushes growing out of the floating island base.

Rottnest Island

For Rottnest Island, I decided to go for a palette that signifies a “pinkish sunset across a beach”. Rottnest is very well known for its beaches and lighthouse that beams across the ocean, so I wanted to capture the essence of it with the help of this colour palette.

Busselton Jetty

This colour palette represents something akin to “a sunny day at the Australian seaside.” The jetty itself is an extension of the Busselton beach so I wanted to encapsulate the essence of that without exactly giving out the impression that the scene is from a beach.

Illustration Process

Sketch Designs - Initial Pitch Idea

Wattle Forest - Numbat

This concept is inspired by catbus from My Neighbour Totoro, but instead of a cat it's a numbat. I decided to include the human character inside of the numbat bus so that the reference is more clear.

Wave Rock - Black Swan

This concept is inspired Princess Mononoke with my human character riding a huge black swan. In the background is an iconic WA touchpoint known as Wave Rock.

Rottnest Island - Quokka

Rottnest Island is an iconic touchpoint off the coast of WA, so it would be great to include it in my illustration. My "mate" design is a Quokka in a suit, welcoming the human character to the island.

Transperth Bus Stop - Koala

People are very familiar with Transperth and its services, so it'd be something different and unique to include in there. My "mate" design is a Koala inspired by Totoro.

Here are a few sketches of me experimenting with the Koala Totoro design. I used these sketches as reference for the creation of my mockup aswell.

Example sketches of final island product

Utilising Gouache Paints

I learnt a new style first and foremost whilst developing my illustration. I handpainted most of the assets using gouache paint, which Studio Ghibli artist Kazuo Oga uses to develop the backgrounds for their films. The textures of the paint help give the assts and islands themselves a more "earthy" feeling. Using this medium was very fun and I'm very interested in using it again in the future! This in turn makes my illustration quite unique as it uses mixed medias to help flesh out the piece as a whole.

Scanning In

Rottnest Island Island

Kings Park Island

Nature's Window Island

Busselton Jetty

Busselton Jetty Island

Rottnest Island Assets

Kings Park Assets

Mini Islands & Bushes for Nature's Window

Adjusting Scans on Photoshop

After scanning in my gouache painted pieces, I edit and combine the assets into Photoshop to finalise their designs. They turned out excellent and I'm very proud each one of them look like a piece of WA ripped from the earth to be a floating island!

Sketch Designs for Mates

Whilst sketching up my designs for my mates, I tried to think about how to infuse each of their personalities from their real life counterparts and positioned them in a way that makes them reflect their mood.

Scrapped Human Character Idea

In my initial stages of development, I intended to add a human character to be interacting on each island with my "mate" designs. This would overall make the islands feel more consistent with one another and would give of the impression that the human character would be travelling to these islands to meet each mate that inhabits it.

Unfortunately this idea was scrapped due to how much limited space there was on each island. If I did have more to do this illustration, however, I would definitely implement this character within it.

Mate Inspiration

My Neighbour Totoro

Spirited Away

Pom Poko

Development of Mate Designs

Kingston the Koala

Echo the Echidna

Quick the Quokka

Lizzie the Lizard

Brea the Black Swan

These are my finalised Mate designs I implemented within my floating islands. Each of them were designed as a representation for the moods and emotions each island gives off and what actions are down within them. These characters would overall make the whole piece fit together as one, as each character brings a certain essence and makes the feel more alive!

Initial Mock Up vs. Final Design

I have made a significant improvement ever since the first mock up I pitched and developed to my finalised illustration. The mock up looks very bland and realistic to what I was envisioning, where as the final product looks more polished, beautiful, vibrant and lively.

I'm very happy with how my final illustration turned out and am glad that my techniques and style of image making has been improved with this project and process.

Motion Graphics Development

Screen Test 1

Planet Of The Mates DAWN Screen Test 2 (2).mp4

Screen Test 2

Samuel_Bourke_PlanetOfTheMates_ScreenTest3_v2 (1).mp4

Screen Test 3

POTM_V4_ScreenTest4_SamuelBourke_King'sPark.mp4

Screen Test 4

PlanetOfTheMates_SamuelBourke_FINAL_NOSPIN.mp4

Final Motion Video for Yagan Tower

I had no prior experience to After Effects whilst developing an animated video to be displayed for Yagan Tower. Now, however, the program intrigues me to keep on experimenting with what different motions I can put within project and personal illustrations I create. Though it is a difficult program to get a grasp on (and rendering is very yucky), the payoff was 100% worth it in the end, and I am very happy with how the final animation turned out!

Gif Development

Some of the problems I had with the motion video was with the motions (a shocker, I know.) A fire animation, in particular, added 50+ hours to my rendering time which I removed after discovering it. I believe the problem was that the fire animation I had on was exporting each singluar frame for each second which, in turn, made the export time longer then it needed to be. After its removal, the export time was around 5 hours, but what could replace the fire animation? A simple solution: gifs!

Not only did I use a fire gif, but I also made two different ripple gifs for Rottnest Island and Bussleton Jetty to animate the water moving. This was an animation that was also down in many Ghibli films, where the water ripples showed but the water was more so still. Even so, this gave off the illusion that the water was still animating. I very proud of how it looks in the final render, so now I now the answer to all slow rendering motion graphics is simply gifs! (not really, but you get the point haha)